The government Saudi Arabia‘s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund, owns a large stake in the two companies that primarily manage the tech for the Democratic Party’s campaign organization, which includes data such as the Democratic National Committee’s voter list.
According to the Intercept, an associate dean at the Ohio State University’s law school, Paul Rose, said, “Saudi Arabia’s investments are definitely strategic. This disclosure is interesting because I look at it and I think, ‘Well, why would you disclose all this?’ The Saudis are really quite shrewd about signaling to not only people in their own country but people abroad what their priorities are.”
Rose, who has researched financial investment from Gulf states, added, “Investment for them is in part a brand-building exercise.”
Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund is managed by Sanabil Investments and they published their investment lists recently, which included monies invested in two private equity firms that acquired the companies EveryAction and NGP VAN, which “make up the Democratic Party’s campaign tech apparatus,” reports the Intercept.
The records show the acquisition took place two years ago.
Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, with assets upwards of $620 billion, heavily invested in Apax Partners, a private equity firm that acquired EveryAction and NGP VAN in 2021. Sanabil also had money in a separate venture capital and private equity firm, Insight Partners, that had a spokesperson for Apax who said, “Limited partners in Apax funds are passive investors with no role in the management of portfolio companies. While they are entitled to receive information relating to the performance of their investments at fund level, they do not have access to sensitive portfolio company information.”
Records show Andreessen Horowitz, Apollo Global Management, and Blackstone have all received investments from Saudi Arabia as well.
Federal regulators with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States under the Department of the Treasury can stop or undo transactions from sovereign wealth funds if deemed they could interfere in domestic politics.
